


i could hold you for a million years

by orphan_account



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Nightmares, Panic Attack, baby firby, firby babies, i cried writing this :), i took some creative liberties with synergy but it's okay, this might be the fluffiest thing i've ever written and it upset me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25979482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Fallon has always been Kirby's comfort blanket. Sometimes Kirby has to be Fallon's.
Relationships: Kirby Anders/Fallon Carrington
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21
Collections: Pillow





	i could hold you for a million years

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!  
> As always, I'd like to thank Amanda for beta reading this for me!  
> Happy reading!

Kirby lay on her back, her feet at the headboard of her bed. A steady thrum rain beat against the windows. An old tree groaned outside in the wind. Streaks of lightning struck the ground, followed by rolls of deafening thunder. She pulled her duvet tighter to her chin, her eyes scanning her bedroom, a feeling of uneasiness creeping its way up her arms, tensing her shoulders and neck.

Usually, the rain would lull her to sleep. She’d fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow when it stormed. Fallon was the one afraid of thunderstorms, not Kirby. But the long shadows crawling across her bedroom floor, threatening to grab her by the leg and pull her under the bed, made a shudder tremble down the little girl’s spine. She turned to her side to face the wall and pulled Montgomery closer to her body, squeezing him so tight she worried he might have trouble breathing. She pushed her face into the mattress, telling herself not to cry. She was six years old; a big girl. And big girls didn’t cry. That’s what her dad always told her, and her dad was always right.

Kirby raised her head to check the time, and the pink and white Hello Kitty alarm clock told her it was ten-fifteen. The light from the hallway was still on, so her dad was still awake, maybe still working. Maybe she could go ask for some warm milk? Maybe that would help.

She hadn’t fallen asleep without her dad in the room in almost two weeks – as long as her mum has been gone from the manor. As long as Kirby had been deprived of her mum’s bedtime stories and warm hugs and kisses that smudged pink lipstick in her hairline. It was like her mum had taken Kirby’s sleepiness back to Australia with her.

Her feet hit the floor with a thud. The floorboard creaked under her weight, and she tiptoed out into the hallway, Montgomery tucked under her arm. The hallway was empty, but Blake and Alexis’s chatter and old music trickled out from one of the living rooms and upstairs. Kirby was going to have to be quiet.

Fallon’s bedroom was on the other side of the first floor of the manor. A light wood door dotted with large sunflower stickers stood in front of the redhead, an inch ajar. Kirby raised her hand to knock, but then let her arm fall to her side again. What if she knocked too loudly and alerted her dad, or worse Blake and Alexis, of her being awake? She didn’t want to get in trouble. She’d already gotten in trouble for bringing a frog into the house earlier, and the thought she might cry if Alexis yelled at her again.

She pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing it behind her quietly. Fallon’s nightlight shone a purple hue over her plaited hair. Kirby stood next to the door, standing on her tiptoes to check if the brunette was asleep. She couldn’t tell, but she doubted it. Fallon could never sleep when it stormed.

“Fallon?” Kirby asked, taking a tentative step forward. “Are you still awake?”

Fallon rolled over, grumbling under her breath. “Yeah. Are you?”

She sat up and rubbed her eyes before turning off her nightlight, steeping in her bedroom in darkness. Fallon was eight. Alexis said she was too old for a nightlight, but Kirby understood. The dark was scary sometimes.

“Yes. Can I stay in here with you tonight?”

“Only if you promise not to kick me.”

Kirby climbed into bed beside Fallon, facing her, and squeezed her eyes shut with conviction. She had to go to sleep. She had to go to sleep. She had to go to sleep. She curled her body in a ball, and Fallon lay on her side with one arm under her pillow. She kept her eyes open. Long gone were the nights she slept when it rained.

Through the sheer white curtains, a flash of lightning illuminated the room. Fallon yelped, turning around to switch her nightlight back on, and Kirby’s eyes shot open, her stomach tightening. The steady rumble of thunder continued on.

“I miss my mum,” Kirby said desperate to take both her and Fallon’s mind off the weather. And, she  _ did _ miss her mum. She wasn’t lying. She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. Big girls didn’t cry. Ever.

“What do you miss about her?”

Fallon propped her head up with her hand, her elbow squashing one of her many stuffed bears. Her eyes darted back and forth between Kirby and the window, her lips close to trembling.

Kirby shrugged, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. The question caught her off guard. She didn’t think there was anything she didn’t miss about her mum. She missed everything about her.

“I miss her singing to me at bedtime,” she said after a moment of thought. Her mum wasn’t a particularly good singer, but she could carry a tune and put on silly voices while singing even sillier songs.

Fallon exhaled, nodding. “I can sing to you if you want?”

“Yes, please.” Kirby gripped Montgomery tighter and closed her eyes again.

Fallon waited a moment before taking Kirby’s hand. She began to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” quiet as can be, her head falling back onto her pillow. Her voice was breathy, and not entirely on pitch, but it was enough to lull Kirby into a deep sleep by the time the song was over. Fallon didn’t sleep a wink.

* * *

Fallon hadn’t left her bedroom in two days. Ignored anyone who knocked on the door, her full lunch plate sitting untouched outside the door. Cocooned herself in her bed, watching the same three old movies over and over again. Didn’t even go to school. But no one seemed to worry but Kirby.

She knocked on the bedroom door every few hours, checking Fallon was okay. She clearly wasn’t, but the redhead wanted to make sure the other girl knew someone was looking out for her.

Kirby and Fallon weren’t on the best terms and hadn’t been in months. Kirby couldn’t remember why - an argument over something stupid that was never resolved. They hadn’t uttered a word to one another in half a year.

No matter how hard they denied it, no matter how much they disliked each other, Fallon was Kirby’s friend. Kirby was always there to be a shoulder to cry on.

“What do you want, Kirby?” Fallon sat on the floor at the bottom of her bed, schoolwork spread out in front of her. She wore her oldest pair of pyjamas, a powder blue pair, their trousers almost threadbare. She wiped under her eyes with her sleeve and trained her eyes on the papers in front of her.

“Are you okay?” Kirby asked, her hand wrapped around the doorknob. She had a feeling her exit was coming soon.

“Of  _ course _ I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” Fallon highlighted some texts. The fake smile she’d plastered on her face was the worst Kirby had ever seen - anger radiated from the brunette’s body like heat. Kirby could feel it from halfway across the room.

“Are you sure?”

Fallon shook her head with a shaky breath and reached her arm out towards Kirby, something she hadn’t done in a long time. Kirby’s hand fell from the door, but she stayed where she was. Her heart skipped several beats, and her breath caught in her throat. Fallon hadn’t wanted Kirby anyway near her in months, since the brunette’s parents had started fighting.

“Come sit with me,” Fallon said, lowering her arm and dropping it into her lap. She straightened her posture and turned her head to look at the redhead for the first time since she’d entered the room. “Please?”

Kirby pushed the door closed and crossed the room to sit on the floor with Fallon. She kept as much distance as possible, her body slightly angled away from the older girl’s. Keeping her head facing the other side of the room, Fallon scooted closer, but left enough room for Kirby to turn if she chose to. She didn’t, unknowing of why the brunette wanted her there.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Kirby asked, pushing her chin towards Fallon, gazing at her from the corner of her eye. Fallon had never been one to talk, not even when they were little, but she hadn’t been one to sit alone with Kirby in quite a while, either.

“It’s fine. Just some company would be nice.”

Fallon returned to her schoolwork, bending over her notebook and writing out equations and formulae in her tiny private school print handwriting in her blue glitter gel pen. Kirby pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. She could be Fallon’s company. Easy.

Fallon finished her maths homework, and Kirby watched, trying and failing to follow along. Kirby was clever, but not clever enough to understand maths problems for students two grades above her. She didn’t quite get algebra yet, but she liked the way the other girl wrote numbers.

“Steven thinks Mom and Dad are going to get a divorce,” Fallon said once she’d packed all her schoolwork back into her bag. She sat on the ottoman at the end of her bed, crossing her ankles and sitting on her feet. She pulled a hand through her hair, her mascara crumbling down on her cheeks.

Kirby nodded, a frown sinking her lips. She slid up to sit next to Fallon, an uncomfortable familiarity pulling at her stomach. She didn’t really remember her parents being together, but their divorce hurt all the same.

“I’m sure they’ll be okay,” she said, the lie burning all the way up. In all honesty, Kirby was surprised Blake and Alexis had lasted this long. They’d been fighting since before the redhead could remember. They should have separated long before her parents had. “Don’t worry.”

Fallon offered an unfamiliar smile and moved closer to Kirby until their bodies were touching. Kirby froze. She still didn’t know why she was there. Fallon had other people to keep her company. Anyone other than the redhead. Yet Fallon asked her. Kirby wanted to ask why, but kept her tongue clasped between her teeth.

Yes, Kirby had wanted to be there for Fallon, but she’d expected to be rejected. To be shooed away. She couldn’t remember how to comfort Fallon. That part of their relationship died long before their friendship.

“Do you remember when we were little, and I’d sing to you when you couldn’t sleep?” The brunette asked, fidgeting with the sleeve of her sweater. She trained her attention on a loose thread, and Kirby did too. This inch-long string of frayed fabric was the only thing keeping Kirby from asking too many questions.

“I do.”

Fallon hesitated, swallowing hard. A mingling of resentment and pity pressed itself to the back of Kirby’s throat. As much as she wanted to be there for Fallon, she only let the redhead in when she was wounded. Used Kirby as her stand-in therapist, despite her only being twelve years old. Kirby didn’t understand why, but she knew it felt a little gross.

“Can you sing to me?” Fallon asked, her voice so brittle a breeze would shatter it. Perhaps on the verge of tears, she made eye contact for the first time.

“I can’t sing. You know that.”

“I don’t mind. Please.”

Kirby sighed and shook her head. Not in decline, but in borderline disbelief. She loved Fallon, in a close-but-not-friendly way, but she didn’t think she was comfortable singing for her.

“What would you want me to sing?” Hypothetically.

Fallon shrugged, but something definitive settled on her face. She knew what she wanted, but, for once in her life, she was being too polite to ask. “Whatever.”

Kirby wracked her brain for a song. She and Fallon didn’t exactly have the same taste in music. Kirby mostly listened to old rock her mum used to listen to and Paramore. Fallon exclusively listened to musical soundtracks and top forty pop. When Fallon would sing Kirby to sleep, she’d sing songs from old musicals. Kirby would have sung one of those, but she could not for the life of her remember the words to any of them.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes. Kirby didn’t sing and Fallon didn’t complain. Which was new for her.

“You don’t have to sing to me if you don’t want to,” Fallon said after a while, her face burning pink. She crossed her arms over herself and leant back onto her bed. “Just having you here is nice.”

So, Kirby stayed there. They went back to not talking after that. It worked for them.

* * *

_ White robes and no phones and kidnaps to Sri Lanka. Fists around your arms and cool air on your scalp. No inside. No inside. No one in. No one out. Promotions and blessings and praises. _

_ Who do you want to be? Which self do you want to escape from? The old one with regret hanging over your head, weighing on you like a metric ton of bricks? The current one with too many worries and not enough smiles, pulling your soul inward on itself? The future one you can see in the distance, but the road is too far to run? Which one? Which one? Which one? _

_ Follow along like cattle to slaughter, keep your eyes covered but your eyes well alert. Run, baby, run. Run away. From yourself; from them. Always from them. Keep yourself close and us even closer. Weave us in tight to you. Stitch and sew and bead and braid. Bind fingers together; mesh your happiness with ours. Keep them out. _

_ No one in. No one out. No inside. No outside. _

_ They lied to you. Sweet whispers and promises of grandeur you could never have. They took, and they took, and they took. You gave, and you gave, and you gave. Until you were but a carcass of yourself. _

_ No inside. No outside. No one in. No one out. _

A sliver of dread crawled up Kirby’s spine and wrapped itself around her throat. It tugged tight, restricting all airflow and leaving a bruising mark on her trachea. Heartbeat a mile a minute. Stomach twisted in a knot. A weight sat on her shoulders and chest, pinning her to the bed. She flexed her fingers, but they remained stationary. Her cemented muscles taunted her, aching with every failed movement. In through five and out through seven. In through five and out through seven. In through five and out through seven.

She was thirty-one days past Synergy. One month to the day. Yet she still felt as though she was speed-running the five stages of grief every time she thought too hard.

Denial when anyone had the nerve to bring it up, her body shutting down at the mention of the place. If she pretended it didn’t happen, it didn’t. Right?

Anger when she remembered all it took was a talking-to from Fallon to get her out. Fallon wasn’t allowed to have that influence on her. Never.

Bargaining when it got too late. If she forgot, would everyone else?  _ Dad, please don’t look at me like that. _ She’d do anything to make it stop.

Depression when she thought of her dad, and the forty-seven voicemails and ninety-six texts he sent her while she was gone. She never meant to hurt him, even if it felt so good when she did.

Kirby was yet to accept it.

Nothing felt real anymore. Kirby couldn’t remember a time when anything felt anything short of bizarre. Down was up. Left was right. Cream-papered walls encapsulated her, locking her between them. Kept her still. Legs out in front of her, arms limp at her sides. Nails chewed down to stubs.

La Mirage was cold at night. Or it was to Kirby, anyway. No one else ever noticed the draught coming from the windows or under the doors. No one else noticed the radiators turn to ice, or the air conditioning sputter to life late into the night. No one noticed but her.

Once the fear from her nightmare had subsided enough for her to move, she pulled her blankets around herself again. She’d kicked them off at some point while she slept. This was becoming a nightly occurrence. It was why she moved out of the manor. She woke the other residents.

Fallon had moved out not long before Kirby, needing space from her father. Kirby couldn’t blame her. One moment too long with Blake Carrington was enough to send anyone packing. She was in the hotel, too.

One-fifty-four. Fallon could be awake. Perhaps. If Kirby hoped hard enough.

One ring. Two rings. Three.

“Hello?” The brunette’s voice was hollow and hoarse, her grogginess ladled on thick.

_ No one in. No one out. No inside. No outside. _

Kirby’s breaths came quick and shallow, rattling her lungs and chipping her ribs.

“Kirby?”

Nothing. No sound escaped her lips. None but a whimper could.

“What room are you in?”

Kirby croaked out her room number and dropped her phone on the floor. Fallon would hang up. Kirby didn’t have the energy to.

The door swung open and Fallon flew in, her phone flashlight blaring through the darkness.

“Are you all right?” Fallon sat down on the ned next to Kirby and scooped the other woman into her arms.

Kirby forced a breath, then hissed it out again from between her teeth. She sat up in bed and refrained from nodding. Lying to Fallon had become natural to her; something she did without hesitation, but telling her she was okay when she was anything but that felt like a betrayal to herself. She shook her head, her jaw setting. Kirby shifted in Fallon’s embrace, sweat sticking her hair to her face and the room growing hot around her. Fallon clasped her fingers and tightened her arms around the other woman. She’d never been great at comfort, especially not to Kirby.

“What’s wrong?” Fallon asked, keeping her voice light but firm. As though she was talking to a disobedient toddler. Kirby was twenty-four years old, almost twenty-five. She was tired of being treated like a child.

“It was just a nightmare. It’s okay. I’ll be fine in a minute.”

Fallon scoffed, shaking her head. She said nothing for a few moments, and Kirby stewed in the silence. Heartbeat calming, breaths deepening. Adrenaline sapped to exhaustion.

Kirby pulled herself from Fallon and stood up, shaking out her hands. She walked the length of her hotel room and stopped at the wall, staring at it. Shadows curled over it, eclipsing the subtle pattern of the eggshell wallpaper. She lifted her hands to her face and rubbed her temples, her eyelids closing. The weight of a headache hung over her.

She stayed there, controlling her breathing because it was the only thing she could. Her shoulders hunched, her cheek between her teeth.

“What happened in your dream?” Fallon asked from the other side of the room. Kirby kept staring at the wall. She refused to look at Fallon.

“I was at Synergy. It was just a lot. I don’t really remember.”

_ No inside. No outside. No one in. No one out. _

Kirby brought one hand from her face and held it out in front of her, flexing her fingers. Five fingers, fourteen knuckles. In through five, out through seven.

“How long were you there?”

“Ten days.”

It wasn’t long. Others had been there for years; since the program started. The thought of spending one second longer there than she had made Kirby’s insides itchy, like a million bug bites beneath her skin. She felt carsick when she imagined it, as she did on the way up there. Goosepimples charging up and down her arms and legs, but the nervous – and excited – apprehension had soured to pure, unfiltered dread.

Five fingers, fourteen knuckles. In through five, out through seven.

_ No one in. No one out. No inside. No outside. _

“Why did it take you so long to tell us?”

Kirby bit out a laugh. It left a bitter aftertaste on her tongue.

“It took nine days for you all to notice I was gone. Nine.”

She turned on her heel to the rest of the room. Darkness clung to everything like moss to a damp wall. Fallon stood next to the bed, her arms crossed and her features obscured. But Kirby guessed she was frowning. Fallon was always frowning.

“We’re the worst, I know that. I’m sorry.” Her apology sounded almost genuine. She never learned to apologise, so this was nearly impressive.

“Yes, you are the worst. You’re fucking terrible.”

“I know I’m fucking awful, Kirby! I’m a bad person! I’m  _ aware! _ You don’t have to tell me every five minutes because  _ I know _ .”

The smile fell off Kirby’s face and a thin line of her lips replaced it. She crossed the room again and sat on the bed, curling in on herself. She wanted to go back to sleep, but her heart hammered in her throat, anchoring her awake.

“And I’m trying to get better. Especially to you. You don’t deserve everything I’ve put you through. I’m sorry.”

Kirby nodded.

“How can I make it up to you?”

Kirby shrugged, bringing herself to look up at Fallon. She wished she hadn’t. While Fallon was the worst, she was her friend. Even if there were times when neither of them would admit to it.

“Sing to me,” Kirby said, every syllable draining her.

“Sing to you?”

“Yes. Like when we were little. After my mum left.”

Fallon nodded, and Kirby climbed back in bed. The brunette stood there for a moment, looking a little lost.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Kirby asked before rolling to her side to face the centre of the bed. She crossed her arms and counted the roses in the vase on the windowsill.

Fallon got in bed too, and she replaced the flowers in Kirby’s eye line. They lay staring at one another, the temperature of the room sinking again. Kirby shivered, and Fallon reached her arm out and placed it on the redhead’s shoulder. It almost seemed instinctive.

Kirby’s heart rate settled, her breathing on its way there. It was like Fallon had a calming force over her. She couldn’t decide if she was okay with that.

At first, Fallon hummed. Soft and gentle and barely audible. Kirby didn’t recognise the song. It was soothing and eerie all at once. After a moment, the brunette’s hums turned to words, and she was singing “Here Comes the Sun”. Kirby’s mum used to sing that to her when she was very small. She swallowed thickly, her waterline becoming slick with a light wash of tears. She didn’t cry, but she wanted to. This was as overwhelming as her dream, in the opposite way.

She closed her eyes and held her breath.

Fallon finished the song with a short sigh. She shifted, but didn’t leave the bed.

“Goodnight, Kirby,” she said before kissing Kirby’s forehead, and then her nose. The redhead tensed a little, her held breaths exhaling in one large breath. Kirby wasn’t meant to hear the brunette’s next words, but she did anyway. “Sleep well, I love you.”

* * *

Kirby unlocked their apartment door and pushed it open, the tips of her fingers interlaced with Fallon’s. They entered their home, groaning – too tired for it to not even be ten o’clock – and dropped their handbags on the shoe rack in the entryway to deal with later. They made a beeline for their bedroom, shuffling their feet and probably scouring the wooden floor with their shoes. They kicked them off as they entered their room. Saturday night was date night, and it had been that way since their first date a year and a half before. While Kirby had been adamant it would stay that way in the past, crowded restaurants and strangers’ unapologetic staring was starting to wear her thin.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling bobby pins from her hair and watching Fallon rummage in a drawer for her pyjamas. Her hair was pulled in a French braid down her back and her floral dress fell to just above her knee. She stood up straight again and turned her head over her shoulder to look at Kirby.

“Can you unzip me?” She asked, pulling her hair over her shoulder. Kirby stood and walked across the room to stand behind her fiancée. She unzipped the dress without difficulty and pushed the straps down Fallon’s arms, placing a kiss on her shoulder blade. “I think we might need to change date night,” Fallon continued.

Kirby took a step back. “But Saturday is date night.” She went over to her own dresser to change. She put on her pyjamas and sat down on the bed.

“Saturdays are suffocating.” Fallon turned around, a nervousness shrouding her face. Her lips worried to a line and something anxious pooled in her eyes. She held her gaze on Kirby for a moment before crossing the room to put her dress in the laundry basket. “We could change it to a weeknight maybe? It won’t be so busy.”

“Okay,” Kirby said after a moment, her eyes tracing over. “We can change it if you want to.”

Kirby went into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, but didn’t lock it. Fallon came in a moment later, an old hoodie over her maroon nightdress. Kirby washed her face and pulled her hair into a bun atop her head as her fiancée brushed her teeth and removed her makeup. They didn’t speak, the only sounds in the bathroom the rush of water from the tap and Fallon’s electric toothbrush.

Kirby left the bathroom and fell backward into bed, a small smile pulling at her lips. Butterflies danced in her stomach, and a blush crept up her neck and along her collarbones. As much as Fallon knew how to push her buttons, the brunette knew how to get under her skin.

Kirby sat up in bed and scrolled through Netflix to find a film to put on and not watch. Fallon came from the bathroom and crawled into bed just as the redhead landed on  _ Love, Rosie _ , and debated whether they should watch it for the second time that week. The brunette curled her body in on itself and pulled the comforter over her head.

“Babe? What are you doing?” Kirby asked, reaching out her arm and prodding the other woman in what she assumed was her ribs.

“I’m trying to  _ sleep _ ,” Fallon grumbled, pushing Kirby’s hand away, but remaining beneath the covers. “It’s so late and I’m  _ tired _ .” It was five past ten. Fallon sounded like a toddler.

“So, you don’t want to watch Sam Claflin and Lily Collins fall in love? That’s not like you.” Kirby laughed a little and pulled the sheets from over her fiancée’s head. Fallon groaned out a protest. “What’s wrong?”

Fallon sat up and dropped her arms in her lap as though they were made of lead. She sighed in the oh-so-dramatic way Fallon sighed when she was even the slightest bit upset. She cast her eyes downward and shrugged. Some kind of defeat settled over her.

“Are you sure you want to marry me?” She asked, her voice tiny. Her words turned Kirby’s blood to ice.

“Of course I’m sure!” Kirby scooted herself closer to Fallon. “Why would you think that I don’t?”

Fallon shrugged again, wrapping her arms around herself, almost protectively. As though she was shielding herself from whatever Kirby would say next.

“It’s just… I’m not very been great at relationships. I don’t want to ruin this. I don’t want to ruin  _ us _ .”

“And you think calling off our wedding won’t ruin it?”

Fallon gave a small laugh, though it was hollow. “ _ No _ . I just want to give you an out if that’s what you want.”

Kirby stared at the other woman in utter disbelief. “Fallon, what the fuck are you talking about? I love you. You’re my person. I’m going to marry you, and you’re going to marry me. And it’s going to be  _ beautiful _ .”

Fallon leant her body on the other woman’s with a noise of contentment. “So you do want to marry me?”

“Yes, I do. Do you want to marry me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Fallon grinned sleepily and kissed Kirby’s lips. “Good.”

* * *

Kirby lay across the sofa with her head in Fallon’s lap. Between late nights with the new baby, and recovering from her emergency c-section, she was well and truly exhausted. Fallon stroked her hair, the pair of them watching  _ Peppa Pig _ despite Percy having gone to bed over forty minutes ago. They were too tired to change it.

For the first time in the week Jude had been born, their house was quiet. Somehow, they’d managed to have both their three-year-old and newborn daughters asleep at the same time. Either they were doing something right, or there had been some sort of divine intervention. Kirby didn’t mind either way.

She closed her eyes, fatigue pulling her under, and Fallon’s fingers in her hair lulling her to sleep. It was sweet and relieving, her body melting further into the couch; her face squashing into Fallon’s legs. Her breaths slowed, and she was out like a light.

Her slumber was short-lived. Piercing cries bounded from the baby monitor sitting on the coffee table, and Kirby shot into a sitting position, her eyes struggling to prise themselves open. She swung her legs over the side of the couch and stood before Fallon had raised her head from the back of the sofa. The redhead grabbed the monitor and made her way upstairs into the nursery.

She thought she had closed the door when she had put their younger daughter to sleep almost two hours prior, but the door lay slightly ajar. She pushed it open, the cries already beginning to subside. Thank goodness.

Kirby raked her hand through her hair and turned her focus to the crib. Percy sat on the floor next to where her baby sister lay, her stuffed bunny Augustus in her lap. She was singing a song from a cereal commercial to her, swaying her body from side to side. Her chestnut curls were starting to fall loose from her ponytail. Kirby thought her heart was going to explode. Tears gathered in her eyes and she placed her free hand over her heart, her postpartum hormones getting the best of her. She kept quiet, trying her best not to ruin the moment. She couldn’t even get annoyed that Percy was up past her bedtime. This was the most precious thing she ever laid eyes on.

Kirby pulled her phone from the pocket of her dressing gown and sent a text to Fallon to get upstairs immediately but to be quiet. Then, she brought her focus back to her daughters, unwilling to ever take her eyes off them again.

“What’s happening?” Fallon asked in a whisper as she came into the nursery. Before Kirby could answer, the brunette saw the scene, too. A small gasp escaped her lips and she brought her fingers to her lips to catch it, moving to stand next to her wife. Fallon put her head on Kirby’s shoulder, and Kirby wrapped an arm around her.

Percy finished her song, but Jude was still whimpering. So, the toddler stood up, dragging Augustus up with her. “It’s okay, Judey. I’ll go get Mummy.”

She turned around to find her mothers standing at the door, and her face scrunched in her attempt to look angry. She looked so much like Fallon it was almost unsettling. “Mummy! Mama! Jude is  _ crying _ ! And you’re just  _ standing there _ !”

“I’m sorry, Jellybean. But you were doing such a good job,” Kirby said, finally coming out of the trance her three-year-old had put her under. “You’re very good with her.”

Percy nodded, her anger melting from her face, but her expression still very serious. She hugged Augustus to her body and walked over to Fallon, pushing her little face into her mother’s legs. A yawn split her face, but she stood rooted to the spot.

“Come on, Perce. Time for bed.” Fallon picked the toddler up, resting her on her hip. Kirby pressed a kiss to the top of her head before they left the room and she went to the crib to feed Jude.

Ten minutes later, Fallon came back into the room, still holding  _ Goodnight Moon  _ by Margaret Wise Brown – Percy’s favourite bedtime story.

“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, sitting on the floor next to where Kirby was sitting with Jude, leaning her head on the arm of her chair. “I can’t believe she thought to do that.”

“And you thought she wasn’t going to take well to being a sister.”

It had been more than a worry they’d had during Kirby’s pregnancy. Percy wasn’t particularly good at sharing, and had expressed displeasure when she learned the news of the addition to their family. But Percy had shown nothing but love to Jude since the moment they met. And Kirby couldn’t have been more grateful.


End file.
